Tag Archives: Monster Gallery

Raising Modern Monster Kids Takes Effort By Monster Kid Parents

In the 1960s and 70s, classic monsters were everywhere! On TV, Halloween costumes, model kits, toys, comics, coloring books…growing up in the “monster boom” was great. If you were a lucky monster kid, your parents supported, even encouraged your love of monsters. Regardless, it wasn’t hard to surround yourself with the things you love.

Today’s kids have incredible access — they are growing up in an on-demand, always-on world that puts the world at their fingertips. They have networks dedicated to cartoons, not just an after school block of time and Saturday mornings. Gone are the days of scouring the TV Guide for anything monster-related to watch and then doing everything in your power to not miss it. But access to so much media means that classic monsters aren’t really in the mix for today’s kids.

I read a lot of 1960s / 70s Monster Kids (and adults in general) talking about how today’s kids are spoiled and how we grew up in the good old days. I don’t dispute that we grew up during an amazing time and we’re lucky to have done so. But I’m not so quick to throw today’s kids under the bus.

Raising Modern Monster Kids requires effort by Monster Kid Parents.

I’m a parent of grade school kids, and while they have tremendous access to all kinds of entertainment, the classic monsters aren’t really in the mix. Sure, there’s the Hotel Transylvania movie franchise, but I’m talking about the real classic monsters. I could simply bemoan this fact and wax poetic about how my childhood was the good ol’ days. But that’s not how I roll. I’m raising my kids as modern monster kids by proactively exposing them to the classic monsters I grew up loving (and still do, obviously, since I have this blog).

Recently, I scanned a printed some pages from my favorite 1970s monster coloring book, Monster Gallery, and my kids and I spent a chilly March afternoon coloring. If you had this book as a kid, or want to learn more about it, please read my recent post and check out all every page of this fantastic coloring book: Colors of a Monster Kid: The Monster Gallery Coloring Book

it was great fun, and the kids picked their favorite monsters to color. My 9 year old loves the Wolf Man. He is not a natural artist and almost never finishes a picture when he’s coloring. But this was different. As you can see, not only did he finish it, he did a great job and really focused on it. He had fun doing it and it shows. Here’s his finished art:

My 11 year old daughter, who loves all things ancient Egypt, picked the Mummy. Anyone who follows me on Instagram or is friends with me on Facebook knows that she is artistically talented (I’m constantly posting pictures she has drawn). So getting her to sit down and color with me isn’t a challenge like it is with my son.

I can rarely pass up the Fly, simply because I like a little sci-fi with my monsters:

I’ll continue to journal my efforts to raise modern monster kids here and share my success (and failures) along the way. In case you missed them, here are some of my past writings on my effort to raise modern monster kids: